In the top three things I love in life, my girlfriend has taken the top spot. The next two spots are dedicated to comic books and video games. While the first one is a relatively exclusive love, the second and third place interests merge from time to time. But it doesn’t always work so well.

I remember my first video game based off a comic book, X-Men for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was also the first time I remember what companies will do to make a buck of someone with a hobby. The game was broken, incomplete and – in some stages – you literally couldn’t beat it because an exit just wouldn’t present itself. Over the years, both video games and comic books have become a medium that have been taken more seriously. The effort put forth into video games based off of comic books have always been taken more seriously to boot.

Gone are the days of Spider-Man fighting Arcade for no clear reason. Gone are members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants spouting out lines like “Welcome to die”. Now we have games where you can don the cowl of a Batman that actually acts like Batman in a fully functioning Gotham. We have games where you can lob Captain America’s shield while a friend backs you up with some of Hawkeye’s Arrows and even games where you can create your own hero from scratch and have them live inside the near entirety of the DC universe as either a hero or a villain.

But there are still some stinkers out there. For every Arkham City, there’s a Green Lantern: The Movie: The Game. For every Ultimate Alliance, there’s a Superman 64. So here is a list of five game that, if you’re just dipping into comic-based gaming, you can’t afford to miss. Instead of trying to do a worst to best list, I tried to include something for every type of gamer. Enjoy!

 1) Batman: Arkham Asylum/City

I’m going to throw both of these games into the mix. Arkham Asylum and its sequel, Arkham City, are the closest you will probably ever get to being Batman while still having parents and a lack of independent wealth. It’s dark, it’s gritty and most importantly, it’s very human. Every character has flaws and strengths and are a constant delight to behold. Whether it’s Hush’s cockiness in City, the slow pecking that Scarecrow gives Batman that leads to an amazing head in Asylum, or the romantic problems that Joker and Harley touch upon in both games, you feel for these characters. Their stop is important to you just as much as your need for them to keep going.

Also important to the game is that Batman is remarkably human. For a while you get this feel for playing Batman and it’s amazing. You feel unstoppable. You find yourself countering your way through 4-12 enemies at a time, rarely getting touched. Then you find yourself against someone with a gun, or you run blindly into the wing span of Solomon Grundy and you quickly come to the realization that; like you, Batman is unforgivably human. This adds a level to game play that I love. You don’t just control Batman, you take care of him. Keeping him out of harm’s way while matriculating a plan to squelch the situation at hand.

Technically the game is a work of art. The environments are gorgeous, littered with detail and a treasure trove of hidden nods to comic fans. Maybe it’ll be the original store that the Ventriloquist took Scarface from in Arkham City or maybe you happen to look down in an air duct in Arkham Asylum and stumble upon where Firefly hides his gear. It’s little things like that that put you in the environment. And the controls are just as nice. Within minutes of your first sit down, you will not only have the combo system mastered, but you will get Batman countering thugs like Justin Wong counters Chun-Li supers (too nerdy? I never know).
All in all, it is a great game for anyone who likes video games. A marvelous game for anyone who likes comic books. And for fans of Batman himself? It’s like an interactive shrine. If you‘ve never played either, get Arkham Asylum and try it. If you love it, beat it and get City. You can thank me later.

2) X-Men Destiny

Honestly, before I hear moans and groans at the reviews this game got, personally, I think it got an extremely bad rap. I play a LOT of games, I get through one and lose interest and pick up another. This game? I played through it three times. I don’t do that a lot so hear me out.

First off, do not go into this game thinking you’re going to be controlling your favorite X-Men. You will not. At all. There were a lot of people who did not look into this game before getting it, found that out and their disappointed rants are one of the things that added to this game’s bad rap. No, you get something better. You get a brand new character that you get to mold yourself.

When the game first opens up, there’s a massive Mutant Rights protest going on when – as always – disaster strikes. Things collapse, things explode, all hell breaks loose and that’s when the character you chose (An anti-mutant activist, a naïve jock or a fresh to the shores illegal immigrant) manifests their newly found mutant powers for the first time. And you get to choose. Will you control your density allowing for rocky armor and some ridiculous melee attacks? Manipulate a shadow energy that allows for teleportation and blade like attacks? Or maybe gain the ability to fire energy blasts all over the place. It’s up to you. And as you go through the game, you pick up X-Genes from other characters that you can use to manipulate your powers. Adding Pyro’s X-Gene to the density control powers replaces your rock armor with magma while adding it to the energy blasts turns it into fire blasts. It’s insanely fun to play with your powers and find fun side effects.

And as for the story, you have some control over it too. Throughout the game you can choose options that will either put you more in favor of the X-Men or the Brotherhood. While the story is linear it is very interesting to see how each characters deals. For example, one of the characters, before finding out he was a mutant, was part of an extreme activist group that thought a viable option is to just kill any mutant they found. Imagine a story line where he starts siding with the X-Men. Likewise, I got a particular sick thrill out of watching the jock become corrupt with his powers and side with Magneto. Those stories were made all the more enjoyable knowing it was my choices that caused all this.

The controls themselves are really fun, too. Each fighting style has their own pros and cons and on the harder difficulties found myself having to change my strategies up drastically for each power set. It’s thick with constant fighting, which is good because the fight controls are top notch, and in between there are several platforming sections that play out like a slightly less forgiving Uncharted game.

Is the dialogue a bit campy sometimes? Sure. But the story is pretty ballsy in the fact that as it’s non-canon they’re not afraid to kill off a major character or two for dramatic effect. Because of this, you get this feel that this is not just a copied and pasted story line from a preexisting book. This is all new and all yours to play with. I haven’t even read a Marvel book since Civil War (I’m a DC junkie, sorry) and I found myself engrossed in the universe and found myself at the Wiki of several characters I’ve never known about before (Pixie? Surge?)

All in all, the game is fun, there was a LOT of love put into it and it’s really fun to see a lot of familiar characters interacting with the character you’ve brought up. It’s a bit more arcade-like and linear than the Arkham games, but sometimes that’s not always a bad thing.

3) Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 1 & 2

The first two games are great, but say you have a friend over or a roommate or a significant other who enjoys comics and games as well. You can’t play either of the first two together at all. They’re strictly one player fair. That’s where these games come in. The Ultimate Alliance series is, essentially, an almost top down arcade action style game for up to four players where a vast majority of the Marvel Universe gets laid out in front of you fantastically. You’ll fight on the Skrull home world whilst Galacticus chows down on it. You’ll hit up a war torn Atlantis. Asgard in the midst of a power struggle. It’s as if Marvel had it’s own version of Disney’s It’s a Small World ride.

The character selection is vast as well. You’ve got X-Men like Wolverine and Storm, Avengers like Captain America and Iron Man. All of the Fantastic Four are here. And even some surprising additions like Silver Surfer, Blade, Nick Fury and several villains like Juggernaut, Deadpool and Venom make this a veritable who’s-who of the Marvel U. And not only does each character have their only little control spin, but sometimes having a certain character in your party when encountering certain characters can lead to whole new dialogue trees. For example, having Spider-Man on your team when encountering one of his foes adds some extended story and several trademark Spider-quips to the story. My personal favorite is when you play through the second game a second time and having Deadpool in your party when you fight Deadpool as a boss. The two Deadpools will talk to each other in this hilarious fourth wall-breaking rant that made me swoon.

Control wise, it’s very easy to pick up and play. By themselves, your normal four buttons are your traditional jump, attack, block deals. But with a shoulder button held down, each of the four buttons accesses a different power or ability such as causing Doctor Strange to fire a magical blast or having Ghost Rider send out a wave of projectiles.

The story itself is nothing really to write home about with the first game, surprisingly, having the better story (don’t even get me started on the last boss of the second game). But as Greg Anderson once penned, “Joy is not found in finishing an activity but in doing it.”

4) DC Universe Online

Was the one to four players Ultimate Alliance served up for you not enough in one game? Well why not bump that number up several digits by entering the DC Universe …Online?

DC Universe Online is an MMORPG that takes place in the – you guessed it – DC Universe. Brainiac has positioned himself to take over the world but when a plan goes through from a version of Lex Luthor from the future, everyone on the planet suddenly acquires super powers, and – for some reason never explained – a communicator for either Oracle or Calculator (depending on whether you made a hero or villain). DCUO, while not the best game in the world, is still very fun, especially when you team up with other people. Seeing some of the characters players have designed is fun, and being in the DC Universe where you can stumble into practically everyone ever is just a treat. Whether you’re teaming up with Wonder Girl to stop Giganta from stealing the power of an Amazon or helping Sinesto knock out a few Green Lantern rookies, you’ve never run out of new and exciting characters.

This game also has, in my opinion, some of the most interesting seasonal events of any multiplayer. While most MMO’s will have a festival of some sort with a hat or two, DCU celebrated Spring in style with villains teaming up with Poison Ivy and heroes siding with Swamp Thing to do some fun, plant heavy missions giving you all sorts of different plant themes accessories. Also, another surprising thing about this MMO is that everything is fully voiced. Every character has their own voice actor/actress. Even the random people walking the street will say things at random. My only problem is that they talk a BIT dated. Power Girl especially sounds like a bad superhero stereotype from the 60’s-70’s.

Best news of all if you haven’t tried this game yet, it’s new gone free-to-play on both the PS3 and PC. While several things are watered down a bit in the free version, it’ll give you more than enough to make you want the paid extras (such as the ability to be a Green/Yellow Lantern). Give it a go.

5) Marvel Super Hero Squad Online

Now; say you’ve got a little nerd in the family. Your son or daughter has been watching you run around Gotham all night taking out thugs and they think it’s time to don the tights of good. There’s no way a youngin’s going to be able to handle Arkham City. What do you do? Hop on your computer and head on over to Marvel Super Hero Squad Online!

This free to play on the PC title is designed with your youngster in mind. After picking a tiny, kid shaped version of the character you hop into an extremely cartoony (almost Toon Town looking) version of the Marvel universe. Simplified controls and fun animations make this the sort of thing that will glue them to the screen as if Mysterio himself designed it. For those of you worried about sending your kids into the realm of an MMO filled with strangers, worry not. The chat box is set with only preset options such as “Join Me”, “Yes”, “No”, “Thank you” and “Goodbye” and there is no voice chat. Long story short; no one is going to be asking for pics any time soon in this game.

Older gamers may tire of the simple controls and very lighthearted story telling within the first hour, but it is wonderful to see a comic company actually design something to enthrall the younger crowds. If you have a little super hero in your house, let them have a go at this.

Bonus for the lucky: Spider-Man: The Arcade Game

Many people look upon the comic world’s arcade existence as something that came to a head with the X-Men arcade game, but if you are extremely lucky, you will find a game that -in my opinion – was VASTLY superior. That game is Spider-Man: The Arcade Game. I remember being a young lad with a pocket full of tokens in Marc’s Pizza Time Theater (I didn’t name it; don’t blame me) and stumbled across this magic machine. I threw in a token and was taken to the character selection screen. The four characters you can play as are – I kid you not – Spider-Man, Black Cat, Hawkeye and Submariner. I don’t know why those are the four, but you know what? It worked.

You go through several stages, focusing mostly on Spider-Man lore with a few Magnetos and other outside villains thrown in for good luck. It also had a lot of things that the X-Men game was sorely lacking. First of all, there was a more advanced control scheme. Not only could you punch, kick and use projectiles, but every character had a move designed to fling them to the other side of the screen when in trouble. Spider-Man would websling, Hawkeye would use a grappling hook, etc.

Another fun thing that really changed it up, especially in that time period, was scaling. Start watching the video below at about 3:55 when the team beats Venom. He grows large and the game scales down so you’re now controlling a tiny character, running along fire escapes and fighting a giant Venom. No game at that time did that as it was a HUGE resource hog with the technology available then. So when it happened it was awe-inspiring.

I think the only complaint I have with this game (beyond how exceedingly rare it is to find and the fact that not a single emulation of this game exists in full working format) is that if a character talks and there are no subtitles, it’s almost impossible to understand. For example, watch the video again at about nine minutes in when they beat Venom the second time. For the life of me, I will never know what he said there. But even in that flaw, there is a charm, a reminder to an imperfect time where a game could have a few problems and people would still give it a benefit of the doubt.

If you find one of these machines somewhere, please, play it. It’s a really fun game that disappeared into the shadows of obscurity. But you cannot look at the roster of this game without realizing that someone who actually enjoys comics through this game together.